Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle traveling control apparatus for braking a vehicle to stop the vehicle when a driver of the vehicle is under an abnormal state that the driver loses an ability of driving the vehicle.
Description of the Related Art
There is proposed an apparatus which determines whether or not a driver of a vehicle is under an abnormal state that the driver loses an ability of driving the vehicle, for example, a state that the driver sleeps and a state that a mind and body function of the driver stops and which brakes the vehicle to stop the vehicle when determining that the driver is under the abnormal state (refer to WO 2012/105030). Hereinafter, this apparatus will be referred to as “the conventional apparatus”.
The conventional apparatus executes a stopped state maintaining control for maintaining the vehicle at a stopped state by forbidding an acceleration of the vehicle on the basis of a change of an operation amount of an acceleration pedal of the vehicle after stopping the vehicle. Hereinafter, the acceleration of the vehicle on the basis of the change of the operation amount of the acceleration pedal will be referred to as “the acceleration pedal operation override”.
In addition, the conventional apparatus includes a stop request button which is operated for requesting the stop of the stopped state maintaining control.
When the stop request button is operated, the conventional apparatus stops the stopped state maintaining control.
After the vehicle is stopped deriving from the determination that the driver is under the abnormal state, a rescuer and the like for rescuing the driver may mistakenly operate the stop request button and as a result, the stop of the stopped state maintaining control may be mistakenly requested.
If the driver operates the acceleration pedal when the stopped state maintaining control is stopped deriving from the mistaken request of the stop of the stopped state maintaining control and as a result, the forbidding of the acceleration pedal operation override is cancelled, the vehicle is suddenly accelerated during a rescuing of the driver.